RUTHFULLY YOURS

The New York Times reported last month that an IG investigation was looking into complaints that military officials skewed intelligence assessments about the United States-led campaign in Iraq against the Islamic State to provide a false, Obama-approved narrative about their progress.

Now, in an exclusive for the Daily Beast, Shane Harris and Nancy A. Youssef report on a “revolt” by more than 50 intelligence analysts who are sick and tired of seeing their honest assessments about the campaign turned into unrealistic “happy talk.”

The spooks working out of the U.S. military’s Central Command “have formally complained that their reports on ISIS and al Qaeda’s branch in Syria were being inappropriately altered by senior officials,” the Daily Beast reports.

Some of those CENTCOM analysts described the sizeable cadre of protesting analysts as a “revolt” by intelligence professionals who are paid to give their honest assessment, based on facts, and not to be influenced by national-level policy. The analysts have accused senior-level leaders, including the director of intelligence and his deputy in CENTCOM, of changing their analyses to be more in line with the Obama administration’s public contention that the fight against ISIS and al Qaeda is making progress. The analysts take a more pessimistic view about how military efforts to destroy the groups are going.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed today that Israel won’t exist in 25 years, and in the time leading up to that the Jewish state will have “no moment of serenity.”

In a public address in Tehran today, Khamenei called Israel “fake,” according to the semi-official Fars News Agency.

“Some of the Zionists have said that given the results of the nuclear negotiations, they have been relieved of concerns about Iran for 25 years, but we tell them that basically, you will not see the next 25 years and with God’s grace, nothing under the name of the Zionist regime will exist in the region by then,” the ayatollah said.

He later tweeted his quotes with a photo of people walking on the Star of David, stressing that “heroic and jihadi morale” will torture Israel until its fall.

Maybe he can be so conservative on taxes that voters will forget about his immigration position.

I love the way Jeb Bush thinks. He knows that his views on illegal immigration are unpopular, so he thinks that if he talks conservatively enough about other topics, people will overlook his minor policy differences with mainstream America on illegal aliens and vote for him.

Don’t laugh. After all, if he promised to drop marginal rates to zero and to eliminate the income tax and replace it with a national sales tax (which no other candidate has called for!), wouldn’t that be worth the price of legalizing the existing legal aliens? If the answer is yes, then there is a tax rate at which you would vote for Jeb Bush!

So the question becomes, how big a tax cut do you need to vote for Jeb Bush? When I consider the question, I weigh the many downsides of illegal immigration and assign a point value. Right now the top marginal tax rate is 39%, or with a extra 4% tax on investments, about 43%, depending on the circumstances (and obviously not everyone pays the top rate). Bush wants to reduce the top rate to 28% (while raising it at the same time for people who are evil by virtue of the fact that they invest in hedge funds).

Should the United States take in (even more) Syrian refugees?No.And here’s why.

We have already committed to accepting thousands of Syrians over the course of the next five years. So the decision to bring Syrians to our country is not one merely being debated, it is, regrettably, already well underway. (It is regrettable to have to say “regrettably” when talking about this, but Muslims pose a unique threat to free people everywhere.)

By the end of 2016, the State Department anticipates we will have brought as many as 10,000 Syrians to the United States. It’s safe to assume that number is low since just last month the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) submitted the names of more than 16,000 refugees from Syria for resettlement in the United States. Either way, this is just the beginning. The State Department expects the numbers to “surge” over the few years.

Numbers aside, the issue of Syrian refugees must be put into a larger context. (And, just for the record, the word refugees really should be put in quotes, as will be explained later.)

First, everyone must ask why so many Islamic nations are refusing these refugees. Breitbart reports:

“…amidst cries for Europe to do more, it has transpired that of the five wealthiest countries on the Arabian Peninsula, that is, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, not one has taken in a single refugee from Syria. Instead, they have argued that accepting large numbers of Syrians is a threat to their safety, as terrorists could be hiding within an influx of people….”

The EPA employees at fault won’t face criminal charges. Neither should companies that make similar mistakes.

The Animas River disaster in Colorado is looking worse and worse for the Environmental Protection Agency. On Wednesday, EPA officials faced grilling from a congressional committee for the agency’s Aug. 5 spill of three million gallons of toxic wastewater into a tributary of the Animas during the cleanup of an abandoned mine near Silverton, Colo. On Aug. 24, the agency released the findings of an internal investigation that found its staff had failed to accurately gauge the water pressure within the mine, thus increasing the chances for a “blowout” like the one that occurred.

All this came after reports that the EPA had known for more than a year that cleaning up the mine was highly risky. As Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, asked in Wednesday’s hearing: “Why did the EPA ignore these obvious warnings?”

Offering a helping hand to America’s enemies in Iran, Russia and Cuba will ruin lives and many more will die.
A quick glance at the latest headlines suggests a jarring disconnect from the stream of foreign-policy successes touted by the Obama White House and its allies. President Obama has been hailed by many as a peacemaker for eschewing the use of military force and for signing accords with several of America’s worst enemies. The idea that things will work out better if the U.S. declines to act in the world also obeys Mr. Obama’s keen political instincts. A perpetual campaigner in office, he realizes that it is much harder to criticize an act not taken.

But what is good for Mr. Obama’s media coverage is not necessarily good for America or the world. From the unceasing violence in eastern Ukraine to the thousands of Syrian refugees streaming into Europe, it is clear that inaction can also have terrible consequences. The nuclear agreement with Iran is also likely to have disastrous and far-reaching effects. But in every case of Mr. Obama’s timidity and procrastination, the response to criticism amounts to this: It could have been worse.

Tax reform that would cut rates and unleash business investment.

“Mr. Bush will have to sell his plan in the crowded GOP field, but perhaps his policy seriousness will steer Republicans away from this summer’s sloganeering and toward a debate about what really would make America great again.”

Conventional politics says presidential candidates should keep their tax reform plans gauzy and nonspecific. So much for that. Jeb Bush on Wednesday rolled out a tax plan that is remarkably detailed, including the tax deductions he’d eliminate in return for cutting rates to spur faster economic growth.

The former Florida Governor has made reviving growth and raising wages his main policy goals, and the tax plan is his first down payment on getting there. These are the right goals given six years of tepid growth and median household income that is still lower than when the expansion began in 2009. Faster growth than 2% a year is crucial to solving every other problem—from drawing more Americans back into the workforce, to reducing poverty, to financing U.S. defenses against growing global threats.

The administration couldn’t give Congress documentation of the Nuclear Iran secret side deals – it doesn’t have them and never did.

In an exclusive interview with the JewishPress.com, Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-KS) disclosed that not only has every member of Congress who voted for the Nuclear Iran Deal never seen any of the documents containing key elements of the deal, but also that not a single document from or about those side deals is anywhere in the possession of any Americans.

This means that neither the President of the United States, nor the Secretary of State, nor any member of the U.S. negotiating team has the capacity to read any of these documents and know what they say.

The treatment meted out to Jewish-American reggae icon Matisyahu by the organizers of Spain’s Rototom Sunsplash music festival, held annually near Valencia, is by now common knowledge. Refusing to sign on to the pro-Palestinian BDS movement making the global rounds, he was disinvited from participating in the event. As Matisyahu posted [1] on his Facebook page:

The festival kept insisting that I clarify my personal views; which felt like clear pressure to agree with the BDS political agenda. Honestly it was appalling and offensive, that as the one publicly Jewish-American artist scheduled for the festival they were trying to coerce me into political statements. Were any of the other artists scheduled to perform asked to make political statements in order to perform? No artist deserves to be put in such a situation simply to perform his or her art. Regardless of race, creed, country, cultural background, etc, my goal is to play music for all people. As musicians that is what we seek. – Blessed Love, Matis

It was only after the Spanish government and various prominent Jewish agencies intervened that Matisyahu was re-invited.

On the micro-level of public opprobrium, I recently experienced something similar. Having been invited, pro forma, with my pianist wife Janice to play a selection of my original songs at the farmers’ market held in the small southeastern Ontario town where we make our home (let’s call it Cataraqui), I lingered six weeks to learn the date of our performance. Finally, I inquired by email. After a few days, I received the following message from the event organizer:

Hi David
I’m sorry, I’ve been somewhat out of the loop and had to step back a bit from market organising, but I thought someone had been in touch. My understanding was that there was some concern that your musical style might not be the best fit for the market but I believe moreso [sic] that the strong political content of your website was not something we were prepared to appear to be endorsing.

How could any member of Congress in good conscience support a deal that so blatantly empowers a brazen enemy of the United States — a regime that has killed thousands of Americans, a regime that daily continues to call for death to America and the annihilation of Israel — to the degree that even the Obama administration openly concedes that the deal materially supports terrorism?

No sooner did Obama lock up the Democratic support he needed in the Senate to ensure his deal cannot be defeated under the farcical Corker review process than did his Iran point-man, Secretary of State John Kerry, send a letter to members of Congress promising that more military aid would be given to Iran’s enemies, Israel and the Sunni Gulf states. Let’s put aside the absurdity of vowing, as Kerry does in the letter, that Obama’s deal will promote regional peace while simultaneously acknowledging that Iran’s enemies will need “increase[d] security assistance.” If the Obama administration were charged with committing material support to terrorism, a serious felony violation of federal law, Kerry’s letter would suffice as a “Guilty” plea.